1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of advertising displays on a shopping cart.
2. Prior Art
The product description “Portable Store Assistant” from the Wincor Nixdorf company, printed in October 2004, discloses a shopping assistant.
The shopping assistant is a standalone PC which is operated under the Windows CE operating system and represents a not inconsiderable value.
This shopping assistant can be fitted on the push handle of a shopping cart and displays various information to the customer on its display.
The shopping assistant also comprises a bar code reader. As soon as a bar code on a product is brought close to the scanner, the shopping assistant's display displays price information for the scanned product.
On account of this value, the shopping assistant is issued only to registered customers of the shop for the shopping period and is mounted on the shopping cart only temporarily.
The product description shows the shopping assistant connected to the push handle of the shopping cart by means of a swan neck connection.
The base of the swan neck is seated centrally in a region of the push handle which is normally provided as an advertising area.
A drawback of the known solution is the fact that the shopping assistant has a special holder which is fitted directly centrally in the region of the push handle which is otherwise available as an advertising area.
This disadvantageously means that this region of the push handle can no longer be used as an advertising area.
This is a drawback particularly because the shopping assistants—as already mentioned—are issued only to registered customers and therefore the majority of the customers, using shopping carts without a shopping assistant, no longer have an advertising area.
In addition, the shopping assistant is relatively large because it has its own display on which the information is displayed for the customer. This size of the shopping assistant in turn creates a correspondingly large space requirement for keeping and collecting the shopping assistants temporarily issued to the customers.
DE 19843531 A1 discloses an advertising display for a shopping cart in which electronic, possibly programmable information media are used. The advertising display described therein has nothing disclosed regarding its use as a display for a shopping assistant. The shopping assistant therefore needs to be relatively large in order to have a sufficiently large display.
DE 4232287 A1 discloses an advertising medium for holding an information medium, the information medium being able to be of holographic and/or electronic type. This information medium can perform the task of a display, but there is no disclosure regarding the use of this information medium as a display for a shopping assistant. The shopping assistant therefore needs to be relatively large in order to have a sufficiently large display.
EP 0601064 B1 discloses a shopping assistant which is temporarily fitted to the shopping cart and has its own display. The use of an advertising area permanently fitted to the cart as a display for the shopping assistant is not disclosed. This means that the shopping assistant needs to be made relatively large in order to have a sufficiently large display.
WO 97/43163 discloses a holder, which is permanently borne by the shopping cart, for a scanner or a shopping assistant, but this holder does not have any kind of display. In this case too, the shopping assistant needs to be made relatively large in order to have a sufficiently large display.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,880 B1 discloses a shopping assistant which is permanently integrated in the push handle of the shopping cart. In this case, the shopping assistant's display can be used as an advertising area, but increased complexity is required because, in order to produce an advertising area on any shopping cart, every shopping cart needs to be equipped with a high-value shopping assistant in this prior art.